Magic Bullet - Extended

Issy Wood, MUSIC, 2025, all and musical instruments, dimensions variable, exhibition view Schinkel Pavillon 2025, courtesy of the artist; Carlos/ishikawa, London; and Michael Werner Gallery, photo: Frank Sperling

Issy Wood – Magic Bullet

11. September 2025 – 15. February 2026

In fall 2025, the Schinkel Pavillon will present “Magic Bullet” – the first large-scale solo exhibition in Germany by British artist Issy Wood (b. 1993). A new series of works will be on view that respond to the striking architecture of the site.

Issy Wood captures our world with her tempting paintings–on canvas, on music instruments or furniture covered in shiny velvet–based on her astute observation of objects, events and the human mind. Her distinguished, old-masterly painting fluctuate between realism and surrealism, a pictorial form that is as uncomfortable as it is seductive and which the New York art critic Barry Schwabsky described as “perverse realism.” Despite, or because of, her anachronism in technology and subject matter, Wood seismographically records the sentiment of her generation in such a unique way. Her hyper-modern visual language stems from her iPhone, but she also draws on antiquated sources such as estate catalogs or stills from forgotten film classics. Obscure fetishes of the commodity world, old-fashioned and fashionable luxury goods, and archaic totems are imbued with allusions and personal experiences and, like her blog confessions, oscillate between disclosure and concealment. Objects and surfaces function as surrogates for the untouchable fears and desires of the inner and outer worlds, which clash harshly in her staggered images.

Self Portrait 64, 2025, Oil on linen, 175 x 215cm exhibition view Schinkel Pavillon 2025, courtesy of the artist; Carlos/ishikawa, London; and Michael Werner Gallery, photo: Frank Sperling

An adjacent essay was commissioned on the occasion of the exhibition of Issy Wood: A Throw of the Dice by Margaret Kross.

Excerpt: Ultimately, Wood’s paintings ask us to read between the lines of vulnerability and projected self-mythology. In doing so, they serve as cheeky astroforecast, eulogy, and vow to question the oaths society demands we make seemingly without choice—while acknowledging that we still subscribe to these beliefs as a way to counter the unknown. So maybe there is a magic bullet: an ego death that explodes the whole charade by taking the hand off the trigger and refusing to play—or beating the system at its own game. Wood’s practice insists that to live is to acknowledge that our world is one of constructed surfaces but, perhaps, we can cut through in observing, and wagering a pact, with the uncertain.

Supported by Leap Art Foundation, Carlos/Ishikawa, London and the Karin and Uwe Hollweg Stiftung, Bremen.

Curated by Lina Louisa Kraemer
Curatorial assistance: Dr. Luisa Seipp

Part of Berlin Art Week 2025.